After Pentecost: Peter, Paul, and Christianity

After the death of Jesus, Peter founded the Christian church. Paul took the Christian message to the Greeks, and they carried it to the whole Roman Empire. Peter and Paul were the most influential leaders in establishing a religion about Jesus. They were both tireless in their efforts to create the Christian faith tradition, which included some of their own ideas At first, those who converted to Christianity were from the lower social and economic levels. But by the beginning of the second century, the very best of Greco-Roman culture was turning to this new order of Christian belief. By the fourth century, the Roman emperor Constantine legalized and adopted Christianity. It then captivated the whole Western world and is now the largest religion with more than two billion followers.